I've become obsessed that my right speaker is louder than my left speaker.

[Nozza]

I've become obsessed that my right speaker is louder than my left speaker.

I've asked other people and they say it's not louder. I've swapped over connectors and that doesn't change anything.
I don't have measuring mics but tried measuring SPL from pink noise using my phone at a measured distance from each speaker in turn and it shows no consistent difference.

I sit closer to the right one during the day and I think that has altered my perception to the point where when I then sit equidistantly from them, it still seems louder. Is that possible/likely?

 

[solderdude]

That's why most amps have (had) a balance control.
So one can adjust the balance when not sitting in the center.

 

[ahofer]

I've had this problem. Some of it is clearly in room reflections. I finally had the patience to A/B some test tones while swapping amp channels and speakers to make sure it wasn't in the electronics or drivers. My room (my living room setup) just makes the area around 1k lower on the left. I would have said it was possibly my hearing, but with a db meter I was able to confirm the result *at the listening position* and rule out the equipment.

 

[Pluto]

Turn your seat 180° so you are facing away from the speakers and listen for about an hour.

That will give you more of a handle on the issue.

 

[Matias]

Get an UMIK-1, measure and correct both independently.

 

[abdo123]

The left speaker in my living room is more left dominant because the coach is all the way back at the wall.

My partner doesn't notice the issue (which is very strange to me) and it's been slightly driving me crazy since he will not compromise on the location of the coach.

it's easy to move around the room and notice whether it's where you're sitting or whether it's your hearing (a pair of headphones) or whether it's the equipment (switch the outputs).

 

[Nozza]

Turn your seat 180° so you are facing away from the speakers and listen for about an hour.

That will give you more of a handle on the issue.

It could be I'm deafer in one ear I guess

I've used the balance control for my amp and am doing that for a few days after which I will centre it and see if any theoretical training effect is in play. If that doesn't work I'll go for the 180

 

[abdo123]

Get an UMIK-1, measure and correct both independently.

EQ never helps with imaging problems due to room reflections. I tried for months.

it will also not help if it's their ears.

If it's a gain issue in the amplifier it will be easy to pick up with the Mic though.

 

[Matias]

EQ never helps with imaging problems due to room reflections. I tried for months.

it will also not help if it's their ears.

If it's a gain issue in the amplifier it will be easy to pick up with the Mic though.

If you do a single EQ for both speakers then I agree. But if you EQ each speaker independently, as I have suggested, then it does help imbalances of the room, even better matching speakers, and this does improve imaging.

But ears are a possibility too. If not permanent, maybe just a visit to the doctor and have it checked and cleaned.

 

[abdo123]

If you do a single EQ for both speakers then I agree. But if you EQ each speaker independently, as I have suggested, then it does help imbalances of the room, even better matching speakers, and this does improve imaging.

But ears are a possibility too. If not permanent, maybe just a visit to the doctor and have it checked and cleaned.

This is the current measurments of my speakers and they're pretty identical. I don't know what magic tricks you have up your sleeves but please share them because my experience has been completely the opposite (no effect on speaker balance after individual EQ).

 

[Gorgonzola]

If you listen to a lot of Classical orchestral music, you should be aware that of the usual orchestra seating arrangement that puts violins on the left and tympani and "louder" or more dynamic instruments on the right. This can give the impression the the Right speaker is louder. This should go away if you downmix stereo to mono.

 

[Matias]

This is the current measurments of my speakers and they're pretty identical. I don't know what magic tricks you have up your sleeves but please share them because my experience has been completely the opposite (no effect on speaker balance after individual EQ).

View attachment 108770

No need to be offensive. I would say the opposite: you are the lucky one with such nice measurements. Mine are below prior to EQ (red and green are each speaker individually, blue both together). Look at the different bass peak frequencies and the difference in 60Hz. My system is in a living room and it is not symmetric.

After PEQ is below.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...is-your-favorite-house-curve.2382/post-341190

 

[Pluto]

should go away if you downmix stereo to mono

This is, arguably, the best test of all. True mono material of equal level in each stereo leg should produce a rock solid central phantom image. If you hear anything else, then further investigation is required.

 

[abdo123]

No need to be offensive. I would say the opposite: you are the lucky one with such nice measurements. Mine are below prior to EQ (red and green are each speaker individually, blue both together). Look at the different bass peak frequencies and the difference in 60Hz.

View attachment 108771

After PEQ is below.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...is-your-favorite-house-curve.2382/post-341190

I ‘m actually honest, I would really use some tips because i have literally been fiddling with this for months.

The measurements i showed were after EQ.


The image center for me is in between the actual center and the left speaker.

I want to try corrections in the time domain but i have no experience in that.

 

[Matias]

I want to try corrections in the time domain but i have no experience in that.

So do I. Mitch's articles and Audiolense XO is the way to go, but I cannot afford the 400 euros license right now...

 

[Pio2001]

I don't know what magic tricks you have up your sleeves but please share them because my experience has been completely the opposite (no effect on speaker balance after individual EQ).

Starting from a very asymetrical configuration, the room as well as the left and right speaker that deviate from each other with differences up to 1.5 dB, I have once experimented a correction that completely centered the phantom image.
It was a separate left / right FIR correction generated by DRC according to a target curve calculated by Jean-Luc Ohl.

Here is a set of graphs provided by Ohl according to my measurements. I have removed the URL because the site is still in beta.

In the top left graph (C1), we can see that the left and right frequency responses (blue and red), measured from the listening position, are very different.
The FIR correction (minimum phase, 1024 taps) tried to correct this, aiming at the C8 curve (bottom right). I don't have a measurement of the result, which is not as accurate as the predicted curve, but the effect on the left / right balance was impressive !

I also learned some interesting things with these measurements and corrections. The bottom left prediction (C7) for separate left / right correction show that equalizing separately the left and right speaker below 200 Hz is useless. They must be equalized together.

Here, another setup (the same, but with my own parametric eq already applied before the measurement) show a very important problem between 90 and 108 Hz :

We can see that correcting both speakers at the same time (the above graphs are measurements of such a correction) doesn't work either because they are out of phase in this frequency range ! It can be heard from the listening position (although I rather had the impression that low frequencies were playing in one of my ears only), and if a recording has some drums panned on the left and right side, they sound way too loud.

The best solution was to eq the left and right channels together, except around 100 Hz, where the null was left uncorrected.

 

[typericey]

So relieved I'm not the only one with this "issue." But mine is a bit different: I've noticed, in my systems at least, that most vocal recordings don't have the vocals dead center. Most are somewhat right of center. There's a minority of recordings with vocals dead center, but to the best of my memory I've never heard a recording with the main vocals left of center.

Not sure if this is just the norm on how vocal recordings are mixed or if it has something to do with my rooms and how my speakers are placed in them. I've also started to doubt my 43 year old hearing.

Unfortunately I have to make do with my living space and my speakers are not in the "front and center" of my rooms, but rather offset to one corner. My main system is offset to the right while the 2nd is to the left. Regardless, vocals are mostly skewed to the right.

 

[andreasmaaan]

@Nozza have you swapped the speakers to see if the perceived imbalance appears to switch sides?

 

[vavan]

see also

 

[JoachimStrobel]

This is the current measurments of my speakers and they're pretty identical. I don't know what magic tricks you have up your sleeves but please share them because my experience has been completely the opposite (no effect on speaker balance after individual EQ).

View attachment 108770

The blue one looks loader. Have you looked at the phase, in particular t0?